TLDR for those who’re too lazy to read the whole thread: I’m having fun playing M+ content these days with good people on retail, while I encounter rude people on WOTLK Classic.
I’ve always been the casual type of player. Casual in a sense - I never stepped outside Raid Finder, and it was enough for me to clear Heroic dungeons to see the story in the game. Part of my mentality was the fact that I play World of Warcraft mostly because of the story and I’m not interested in higher difficulties like Mythic and Mythic+, part of my mentality was the fact that I want to treat the game like, what it is, a game, a not a competition with a timer, and also, part of my mentality was due to my perception that Mythic and Mythic+ groups are toxic, especially PUGs, and I should avoid them at all cost.
This was, until I founded my guild Settlers on Lordaeron on Sha’tar. It was advertised on the server as non-toxic, chatty, social guild.
But it didn’t stay social for long. We’re small, but about 4-5 people decided to try Mythic+, because, why not?
This was the moment Mythic+ started to make sense. Here we are - grinding mythic+ up to level10+. We don’t always beat the timers, but sometimes we do. Nobody is mad at the others, nobody blames the others when somebody loses a key. We all enjoy the game, we all gz each others when we get loot.
Of course, because we’re exactly 5 people - a tank, a healer and 3 DPS, the guild is small, frequently not all of us are online. Quite a lot we have to replace with random PUG players and usually there are 3 guildies online. People who join our groups are warned in advance that this is a guild run and nobody blames the other… And they… stay. And they’re nice. One night a random player decided to relog on a higher geared char and help us cleared a +10 dungeon. He didn’t know us. We didn’t know him, yet he stayed, helped us, said goodbye and we didn’t see him again.
Meanwhile, I wanted to level my Ally toon to 80 on WOTLK. I play on Mirage raceway and suddenly I found myself surrounded by intolerant people. I blocked two immediately after my first dungeon, and this NEVER happened during playing retail during the past two years.
First time, I was blamed for rolling Need on an item (cloth, spell power), and I am a WARLOCK - it’s no my fault that I use mostly the same stuff as the priest… And god, this was a leveling The Old Kingdom Dungeon. This stuff doesn’t stay forever and usually gets replaced before hitting max.
Second time, I was blamed for pulling with pet. True, my mistake, and the most idiotic one - I forgot to turn my taunt off. It’s natural, because on Retail taunt gets auto-turned off in a dungeon. But NOBODY, NOBODY really explained what’s wrong and it took me a couple of minutes to see the taunt ability is on auto-mode.
Third time, a tank stayed AFK for about 5-10 minutes and everybody waited for him to get summoned. He finally decided to show up and on the first wipe 3-4 minutes later he left. Something that never happened in my M+ groups.
This is why I ask myself: What happened to the good Classic community? Didn’t the removal of RDF suppose to inspire people to form groups and be nice to each others? Why is my Classic experience way worse than my Retail one?
If the Classic community is dead, I see no reason for Blizzard not to re-introduce RDF and LFR. Just let us clear the dungeons without having to bother with people, and progress on to Cata.
there are no better version if the game, there is just one that suits your expectations better 